


Let's Be Lovers Instead

by jinxes (bobbemorse)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5144624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbemorse/pseuds/jinxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Erica breaks up with Kira and doesn't tell her why it drives Kira positively crazy. When she finally gets a reason, though, she isn't sure if she wants one anymore. And anyway, who says they can't make this easier?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Be Lovers Instead

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bingo Square: Getting back together.
> 
> This has minor Malia/Scott.

"This is getting ridiculous," Lydia announces. She's standing between Kira and the television, hands on her hips and lookig around the dorm room in clear exasparation. Kira looks up at her, eyes wide but with exhaustion written all over her face. Lydia's voice goes a little softer when she says:  
"Sweetie, you need to get out of your room."

Kira doesn't _want_ to go out of her room. She is very comfortable in her pajama pants and her sweater with Malia living around her and Scott occasionally coming in, sitting down next to her to wait until Malia's finished reading the last of her material for the next day in a hurry so they can go out. Scott never tells her to go outside, he just says:  
"Oh, I love this show." Then he smiles at her and puts an arm around her shoulders, allowing her to slump into him, making the world seem just a little bit better.

Lydia's not Scott though.  
Lydia grabs one end of the blanket that Kira has draped over herself and pulls, accounting absolutely correctly for Kira's lack of resistance. She has nothing on Lydia's stubbornness anyway. Especially not in this mood.

It's been like this for a week now. For exactly a week. Kira knows.  
One week ago Erica broke up with her. That's pretty much all there is to the story. Erica broke up with her.  
Kira has never understood how Allison could look her straight in the eye, sitting across from her and just say:  
"Isaac broke up with me." Without any further explanation like there wasn't more to it. Kira has always believed break-ups shatter your heart instantly, leaving you with this situation playing over and over in your head, trying to make sense of it.

But Allison just sat there, a look in her eyes that said that there is nothing else. He just broke up with her.  
And now Kira understands.

Her heart isn't shattered. It's beating steady and calm, Kira checks.  
Erica and her met in the girls bathroom, Erica beautiful and confident with a smile that showed her teeth, Kira wide-eyed and anxious about her upcoming presentation in her _Introduction to Mythology_ course. Erica had looked at her and asked if she was feeling okay and when Kira had caught up with her own words, unable to explain her thoughts in a regular manner, because wow this girl was beautiful she had smiled, with a predatory edge to it.

Her smile got continuously softer with time. Kira found herself longing whenever Erica smiled at her, like she was something worth letting her guard down for.  
It wasn't until they got together and Kira took her shirt off in front of Erica for the first time that the sharpness in her smile returned, matched by the hunger in her eyes. It made Kira feel like she'd be lit on fire at any moment. A comforting feeling in a very strange way.

Then again, that was how it always was with them, equal parts soft and heavy. Erica lured out the exhilaration that comes with breathless nights, sneaking out even though there is no one to stop them or with driving a car with a topless girl next to her (Kira laughed a lot that day. She also blushed so hard at the memory that her mother felt her forehead when she came home that evening.)  
In return Kira managed to make Erica go still when something she said caught her off guard. She was the one who made her shiver and lean in when she was uncomfortable, and she was allowed to put her arms around her after a seizure.

Apparently she was also the one who drove Erica away.

Kira throws off her blanket and gets up.

*

A few weeks pass and Erica and Kira manage to avoid each other relatively easy. It never occured to Kira how little they have in common. Their friend groups overlap just losely, Scott and Isaac hit it off right away and Allison and Lydia got along with Erica and Cora in equal measures, even though that basically just meant there were a lot of snarky remarks thrown around whenever the four of them were in a room together, but they lacked a real connection, something that could have developed only over more time.

Boyd has never really gotten close with any of them. (Erica told Kira about him once, while they lay on Erica's bed, Cora out with Allison and Lydia. She told her about his sister and about his raging desire to be strong again, because he never thinks it's enough. He loves being on the football team and being accepted without many words. She never conceals her face when she talks about him.) Kira knows it isn't because he doesn't like them. It's not even that he doesn't want any friends, at least she doesn't think. Erica told her it's because he finds reasons not to be someone's friend too easily. Kira thinks it's because people give him reasons not to be their friend too easily.  
But ultimately it just means that after Erica and Kira break up Boyd has no real reason to keep talking to any of them.

Erica and Kira never had many classes together, either, since they're on completely different tracks in the educational area.  
It's surprising, how sad it makes Kira how easy it is for Erica to cut her out of her life (and what does that say about their relationship?)  
Just because they don't actively interact that doesn't mean that Kira doesn't see her from time to time, making her stop in her tracks and stare mindlessly for a few seconds or turn around and walk away really quickly or just hide her face.  
It's all handled very maturely.

*

The first time they really run into each other again is the library, which is ironic because it's one of the last places Kira would expect it to happen. Since their library is relatively huge and you can easily avoid people if you want to.  
And yet, when Kira looks up from her textbook there is Erica, sitting across from her and smiling tightly.  
"Hey," Kira says and hates how breathless she sounds.  
"What are you doing here?" Erica shifts her weight onto her arms so that seh leans forward. Unfortunately, that seems to set Kira's mouth off, her body catching up with the panic sooner than her brain.  
"I mean, not here in the library. Obviously I know what you'd do in a library, I'm just asking what you're doing at, you know, my table..." she trails off, feeling extremely lame but Erica smiles, just the tiniest bit, and it makes Kira's heart grow about two sizes. It also hurts like hell.

"I think I owe you an explanation," she says and Kira can't help her eyes widening. She just hopes Erica doesn't notice it's from terror, reaching up her spine and festering at the back of her neck where all the terrible things Erica could say lurk and make Kira's hands sweat. She interlaces her fingers and presses them together so hard her knuckles go white.  
"Why?" she asks, just because she can't think of anything else. Erica squints and and laughs curtly when she says:  
"Allison came to my house." Kira winces, her eyes growing even wider.  
"Oh no! I am so sorry!" Erica shrugs in that manner that means she genuinely doesn't care but Kira finds that she, herself does. It leaves kind of a bitter taste in her mouth that someone had to make Erica do this.

"She was right, though! I should have given you a reason, it's only fair." Kira nods. Not to indicate, that yes, it _is_ , after all that's what she's been obsessing about for weeks now, but to tell Erica that she's going to listen, because Erica doesn't have to do this. People are allowed to break up with someone. She really hopes Erica gets that, without Kira having to say it in a very unappealing rant where she stumbles over all her words and would probably end up making everything worse.

"You make me scared," Erica says and Kira sits back, caught off guard. She doesn't know what she expected to hear but it's most definitely not this.  
"But... you're not scared of anything." She says it with utter conviction because Erica _isn't_. That she could be is kind of an insane thought. Erica gives a little tense laugh.  
"I'm not. Normally. After I learned to live with my seizures I swore to myself to never be as afraid of anything as I was of myself and it has been working really well-" It has. Kira knows.  
"-until you came and ruined everything."

Something deep in Kira's stomach clenches painfully. Erica smiles and it seems sad, until it's transformed into something more confident, more determined.  
"You are so frustrating, you know that?" Kira holds on to the edge of the table now. She is not ready to hear this, she doesn't think she can take it. Her eyes wander over her fingers, her knuckles still white.  
"Before you I have never met anyone who could affect me like that." She laughs but it sounds insecure and it wakes something in Kira that protests against that. This shouldn't be that hard for her.

"You always seemed to be able to read me and you still _adored_ me. You make me so scared because I know that keeping you around would mean letting the fear back in. Because I have no barriers with you. It's _scary_."

Kira can't move.  
Well, that's not entirely true. She does move her lips. Several times, failing to produce a coherent sound.  
"No," she finally says and shakes her head because she can't believe what she is about to do. Erica is sitting there, her eyebrows raised but Kira can't concentrate on that right now.  
"Are you telling me that you broke up with me because things were going _too well?_ No!" She closes her books, her fingers shaking and she doesn't know why, isn't sure what she feels. What she should feel.

When she gets up her movements are jerky and uncoordinated. Eyes still blown wide she looks at Erica without blinking.  
"No, just..." she says and shakes her head again, maybe to get a hold of her own thoughts. She turns on her heels and doesn't look back when she leaves the library.

*

When Kira enters her dorm Malia and Scott are lying on Malia's bed, their legs entwined, text books and paper strewn across their bodies, the bed and the floor. Upon hearing the door open both of them look up.  
"What's wrong?" Malia asks with a frown as soon as she gets a good look at Kira. Her heart still hammering Kira lets her back pack slide from her shoulder and doesn't look at them when she says:  
"I ran into Erica."

She still isn't looking at them but she hears rustling and a loud dumping sound.  
"Come here," Scott says and when she looks up he and Malia are sitting up with just enough space between them for Kira to fit. Malia puts an arm around her shoulder and Scott slides down so Kira can rest her head on his shoulder.

She stares numbly into space for a few minutes and is vaguely grateful for the silence Scott and Malia offer her. Then she becomes aware of the tissue Malia is presenting her and notices the wetness on her face. And it's funny because she hasn't cried once since Erica broke up with her, she's just been sulking and sure she's been sad but it was such an obscure, abstract concept that Kira couldn't really grasp it.  
Now though, now she has a reason. She has reality. It really, really sucks.

"She says she got scared because she felt too much," she says and her voice is almost soundless but she knows they heard her by the way Malia is gripping onto her shoulder tighter for a just a second. They don't say anything for a few long moments though.  
"I kinda get that," Malia admits and shifts her position so Kira can see her more easily. Scott turns his head and looks at Malia, but he remains quiet and his breathing doesn't hitch or change, so Kira stays where she is.

"When you spend so much time on protecting yourself from vulnerability the worst thing that can happen to you is actually _wanting_ to be vulnerable." She shrugs like it's something that doesn't make Kira's head spin and Kira swears that she can _feel_ Scott smiling at Malia over her head.  
"That's unfair, though," Kira says, finding a little more strength in her voice.  
"If the price for not being vulnerable anymore is shutting yourself off to both positive and negative influences it just cancels itself out."

Scott nods and his chin feels hard on her head when it comes down.  
"Erica knows that, though. I think she just doesn't want you to be tied to that." Kira shuts her eyes and says something selfish, only because she knows Scott and Malia are the last people that will judge:  
"So she chose being untouchable over me. I hate that she did that."

And it feels good to say it.

*

The next time she sees Erica she's still a little bit furious but a lot sadder, too. After her initial reaction she went over their conversation multiple times in her head. When she had gotten to the point where she had stood up with her books, for the fourth time she had noticed that she hadn't really paid attention to Erica's expression during her hasty retreat.  
"You were upset," Scott had said, his eyes so understanding that Kira had wanted to start crying all over again. He had cocked his head to look Kira in the eyes.  
"If you don't think it's done you can go talk to her. She came to you first."

Kira had been able to muster up a rather weak smile and looked over to Malia's bed where Malia had still been sleeping. She had thought about the way Scott had been so careful in getting out of bed when he had been woken up by Kira making herself a hot chocolate and about the way he had let his hand rest on her cheek for a few moments before he straightened up and asked if he could have a cup, too.

So, Kira is standing here, in front of Erica's flat that she shares with Boyd and Isaac because Scott touched Malia's cheek in a certain way. It sounds really stupid when she thinks about now, so she wills herself to stop.  
Boyd opens up and his eyes bore into Kira's, without blinking. Kira fiddles with her sleeves nervously, while mustering up a rather anxious smile.  
"Hey," she says and tries to remain just as stoic as Boyd which has always been a lost cause, ever since she met him.

"Can I talk to Erica? I kind of need to apologize." She figures that Erica told Boyd as soon as she saw him because he is her best friend and Kira couldn't imagine Erica keeping something like her tantrum f rom him.  
"Don't make it worse," he says and Kira gives a sigh of relief when he allows her to enter. He points to the kitchen, where the door is firmly closed and disappears into his own room, which Kira has never even seen.

 _Don't make it worse_ , she tells herself and insistently ignores the thought that that means that she's seriously hurt Erica. When she opens the kitchen door she's greeted by the sight of Isaac's back and the groan he utters from where his head is layig on his arms. Erica sits across from him and grins, her face full of Schadenfreude. She looks up and her eyes immediately become sharp and alert, her smile barely staying in place.  
"Kira!" she says and Isaac's head shoots up, which he immediately seems to regret judging by the way his hand cradles his forehead. He looks up at Kira, though and even though his eyes are as clear as ever he's clearly suffering from a massive hangover and/or a night of binge studying.

Either way he drags himself to his feet.  
"I'm gonna go back to bed," he says and scratches the back of his neck, his whole body crouched so he can look down on Kira.  
"Because clearly this is going to be awkward as all hell." And really, who can blame him for that blatant honesty?

Kira can't help but catch the way Erica is clutching the mug in front of her and starts feeling even worse than before.  
Her fingers skim over the splintered wood of the kitchen table when she sits down.  
"I'm here to apologize," she blurts out right off the bat because she simply has no better opening. Of course now that he's started her mouth can't stop moving.

"The things I said were selfish and uncalled for and I'm sorry." She knows her expression is pleading, but she doesn't have time to worry about her body language right now.  
"You have the right to break up with me, of course you do, for whatever reason or for no reason at all, you shouldn't feel forced to resume a relationship just because the other person isn't _ready_ to break up. Especially not when you're scared. What you said was completely valid and I am so sorry."

"You said that already," Erica says and she sounds tired, but slightly amused, so Kira sinks deeper into the seat Isaac occupied before her, her arms sliding over the surface of the table.  
"I hurt you by breaking up with you," she says and gets up to pull another mug out of the cupboard above the kitchen counter.  
"What you said was perfectly understandable."  
"It still wasn't okay, though," Kira says and wishes more than anything that Erica would stop sounding so damn _formal_. Erica is silent for what feels like a very long moment in which she takes the milk out of the fridge without asking if Kira even wants anything. Then she sighs.

"Look, maybe it's not such a good idea to break off any cntact this aprubtly," she says when she sits back down and places a cacao in front of Kira.  
"We could still be friends." And Kira is so relieved she just nods.

Friends. That sounds like a good idea.

*

The thing Kira really should have predicted is that being friends with Erica is absolutely impossible. When she comes over to Erica's on the following Sunday ("strictly platonically," she defends herself and Lydia laughs at her and then proceeds to pick out the perfect outfit for the occasion), both Isaac and Boyd are there, but Erica takes Kira's breath away when she reaches over Kira to get to the candy and it makes Kira want to simultaneously run screaming and grab Erica by the arm to pull her into the next best room where they can be left alone.

When they get their friends together the weekend after that to go to the cinema she sits next to Erica and her eyes linger more than once, even with Malia sitting next to her and elbowing her the first few times until she decides that whispering and making out with Scott sounds a lot more interesting.

When Erica gets a seizure in the mall they're shopping at Kira pulls her head into her lap after it's over and patiently tells her where she is and what happened after she comes to her senses again.

When their respective groups of friends get closer once again Kira's heart skips a beat whenever Erica looks at her, seeming content with her whole situation. (They're tighter this time around though, all of them. Well, Isaac and Stiles still mainly fight when they're in proximity to each other and Cora and Lydia have some extremely memorable quarrels, as well as Allison and Erica, but Kira presumes that it's they're version of getting along.)

And inbetween there are the phone calls that last until late into the night and the good night texts that extend into hour long conversations in which Erica tells her extensively about the exploits of Isaac and Boyd she gets to hear through the rather thin walls of their apartments.  
There are the nights in which she can't take the noise and Kira will get a message, like: _'open the door.'_ and Erica will stand outside like it's the most natural thing in the world.  
There are the mornings in which Malia tells her to go somewhere else so she can wake Scott in a way that Kira does not want to see and she is overwhelmed by the look of a very sleepy Erica that opens the door in her pyjamas  
There are the days where they do nothing in particular at all and Kira will suddenly stop and notice the tug at her heart that tells her that this won't last forever.

Being friends with Erica is a very bad idea. 

*

"I can't be friends with Erica," Kira announces when she's sitting in a café, Malia to her right and Allison to her left, Lydia, Scott and Stiles between them.  
"You don't say," Stiles says with his _'Duh! What are you stupid?'_ face.  
"Of course you can't," Malia says at the same time in her _'You didn't know that before?' tone._  
Lydia gives a sigh and Scott has the decency to at least hide his smile, contrary to Allison who adds:  
"Don't you think it's a little late for you to notice?"

"But," Kira says and hates her helpless tone,  
"-we became friends again so this would be easier-"  
"Which was always doomed to fail," Lydia interrupts.  
"-and I don't know what to do now. Do I just cut all ties?"

"That'd be a shame," Stiles says. "I've almost got Boyd cracked. I swear he's gonna smile at me the next time we meet up." Allison does one of her very expressive eyebrow spiels while she suppresses a laugh and Lydia dignifies Stiles with a truly impressive condescending look, where you can barely see the amusement behind it.  
"He hates you," she says and sips at her latte. Before Stiles can turn his offended expression into a rant how Boyd just needs to learn to love him because he is a very loveable person, thank you very much, Malia cuts him off:  
"You should probably ask her if she thinks it's a good idea to continue hanging out."

Lydia gives a small nod of approval.  
"Figure out how she feels," she says.  
"Or just tell her you still have feelings for her," Allison suggests and ignores Kira's obvious shock at the statement. Scott nods.  
"When I was dating Allison my mom used to urge me to always tell her how I feel and I would keep telling her that Allison already knew. When I came home after a really bad fight, she asked if I had told her I still loved her. 'She knows', I said and the only reason she didn't throw a shoe at me was because she got the phone to toss at me instead." Allison laughs, bright and clear and Kira wonders what it's like to be able to laugh that carelessly with your ex over your break-up while you're still friends who see each other regularly.

"I remember that," she says and fixes her eyes on Kira.  
"The only reason I didn't cry myself to sleep that night was because he left a message saying he loved me at least five times."

*

The anxiety in her stomach reminds Kira of the day in the toilet room, the day she met Erica, the day it all began.  
She's sitting on the park bench and waiting for Erica, probably looking like a freshman on the first day of college with the way she's looking around, looking for Erica to tell her she's in love with her. Again.  
Kira does a panicked little whining sound in the back of her throat. This is gonna suck.

When Erica arrives she hugs her and curses herself for it immediately.  
"So, where do you wanna go," Erica asks and smiles so gorgeously that Kira's breath gets stuck in her chest.  
"Actually, we can stay here for a while," she says and sits back down on the bench, Erica lowering herself next to her.

"I have a problem," Kira admits. Erica's eyes become hard in a matter of nano seconds.  
"With who?" she asks and it comes out so angrily that Kira can't help but laugh.  
"With myself," she says and Erica relaxes her tense body.  
"I don't think I can be friends with you without-" Kira swallows hard,  
"-without catching... feelings for you." She doesn't look at Erica when she says it but she feels her body shifting. That's it then. She's ruined it. She barrels on anyway.

"In fact, it already happened. To be honest, I'm not sure they were ever really gone, I-" Erica mumbles something under her breath that interrupts Kira's chain of thought. She really should have thought this through better.  
"What?" she asks and still doesn't look.  
"Oh thank god," Erica repeats and kisses her in a _very_ uncomfortable way because they're sitting together on a park bench and Kira isn't prepared in the least.

Erica pulls away after a few seconds anyway.  
"I really can't be friends with you," she says and doesn't pull her hand away from Kira's cheek. Kira would be offended if she didn't feel the exact same way about Erica.  
"So," Kira says, still trying to get a grasp of what's happening.  
"-you're not scared anymore?" Erica laughs, too high and a little panicked.  
"I am scared shitless," she says and Kira deflates.

"But I broke up with you and we still found a way back to each other," she says tipping Kira's chin up with her hand, looking right at Kira with nothing but genuine emotion.  
"Maybe I'm a little more ready now," she whispers and lets her other hand settle on Kira's thigh to pull her closer. Kira lets her.


End file.
